Former Rancho Cordova Police Chief Kate Adams is suing Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, accusing him of forcing her out of the department over trumped-up racism allegations to avoid negative publicity for him as he ran for Congress this year.

The 30-page lawsuit, filed late Wednesday in federal court in Sacramento, says Jones and others in the Sheriff’s Office threatened to fire Adams and publicize “false allegations of racism” unless she quietly quit her post in September 2021 as police chief for Rancho Cordova, which contracts with the sheriff to provide law enforcement services.

“This threat came amidst a hostile workplace where Defendants failed to afford Ms. Adams due process during internal investigations, failed to investigate a conspiracy to defame her when she brought it to their attention, and failed to protect her from a coordinated barrage of baseless accusations,” the suit says. “The threat of defamation and a hostile workplace effectively forced Ms. Adams to resign.”

Episode began with racist New Year’s Eve texts

The suit lays out a series of anonymous allegations made against Adams and says the entire episode began on New Year’s Eve in 2013 and involved text messages containing racist memes.

The suit also says Jones was trying to avoid a “media circus” during his run for Congress, which he ultimately lost in June, and that he hired a close friend and political ally — former Sheriff John McGinness — to investigate allegations against Adams and “rubber...

Read Full Story: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article264905314.html